
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 


THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
THE GAME REFUGE BILL DIES IN THE 
SENATE 
HE Game Refuge Bill died in the Senate in 
ali the closing days of Congress. The death of 
this bill was not the result of any lack of 
interest in the cause of conservation or any Op- 
position to the cause of game refuges. On the 
contrary, never before has interest in these two 
principles been greater and more earnest. The 
so-called Game Refuge Bill died because it was 
not the right sort of a bill. 
It does not follow because a bill is presented 
under title “of a bill for conservation” that it is 
a perfect piece of legislation and not to be ques- 
tioned, or that to do so brands a man as an enemy 
to the principle of conservation. We regret that 
there has been too much of this attitude upon the 
part of many of the political game wardens and 
professional protectionists who have been sponsor- 
ing the game refuge bill. There are very good 
sportsmen who would like to question or at least 
inquire into many things that are done in the cause 
of conservation, but hesitate to do so for fear that 
their position will be misunderstood and that they 
will be branded as an enemy to the cause of con- 
servation. 
Strip the so-called Game Refuge Bill down to its 
essentials, analyze them carefully and no matter 
how, devoted you may be to the cause of conserva- 
tion, you will be forced to the conclusion that the 
bill as presented in the house was in reality a refuge 
for anew crop of federal officials and not primarily 
a refuge for migratory game birds. 
The Brookhart Game Refuge Bill authorized the 
collection of millions of dollars from the sportsmen 
of this country and specifically provided that of 
this money fifty-five per cent. was to be devoted to 
the support of a new federal bureau to be created 
in Washington, and forty-five per cent. was to be 
devoted to the purchase of ‘game refuges. 
It is usual to name a bill after its most important 
provision, and had this procedure been followed the 
bill would have been titled “a bill to provide a re- 
fuge for federal officials.” If this bill had been 
so named the sportsmen of this country would have 
understood at once why so many political game 
wardens were intent upon having this bill passed. 
It would also explain the animosity with which 
they have assailed all who differed with them or 
questioned the provisions of this bill. 
278 
We have great respect for many of the men who 
have sponsored this bill—several of them have long — 
and honorable careers in the cause of conserva- . 
tion. The men and the interests who have financed © 
this bill we feel have done so out of the highest 
motives, and the work in the cause they have done 
in the past entitles them to the thanks of the — 
sportsmen of this country, but we do believe that 
both of these excellent groups of men are at the 
present time out of step with the times. 
This country is fed up on federal legislation. — 
The best judicial and legislative opinion of the 
times is opposed to the creation of new federal 
bureaus. The feeling against bureaucratic govern- 
ment has been growing steadily for several years. 
This strong sentiment cannot be antagonized suc- 
cessfully by any lobby, no matter how well financed. 
It may also be said that the political activities of 
certain bureau chiefs in Washington, who are con- 
stantly driving for an extension of their own 
bureaucratic powers and an abridgment of those of 
the states, is leading straight to a Congressional 
investigation. 
On this subject President Coolidge has said, 
“efficiency of state governments is impaired as 
they relinquish and turn over to the federal govern- 
ment responsibilities which are rightly theirs.” In 
criticizing the amount of federal legislation run 
on our statute books, M. W. Alexander, President 
of The National Industrial Conference, has pointed 
out that to-day the salaries paid to all the employees 
in the country were only seven per cent. more than 
the government spends to govern Us. 
We all know that millions of acres of marsh 
land have in recent years been drained, and much 
desirable breeding territory for wild fowl and 
waders ruined. We are all ready to agree that the 
establishment of game refuges throughout the 
length and breath of the country is the only sure 
method of safeguarding the game that we have, 
and of guaranteeing its propagation in the future. 
Immediate steps should be taken to provide these 
refuges. The sportsmen of the country will pro- 
vide the necessary funds by paying the dollar tax 
cheerfully, but they are well within their rights 
in demanding that these funds be handled by their 
own officials and expended in their own states, and 
that one hundred cents on every dollar collected be 
actually expended for game refuge—instead of 
forty-five cents. 
Why waste more time trying to create new fed- 
eral bureaus for new federal officials in a land that 
is now seeking relief from bureaucracy? Give the 
country a game refuge bill that actually creates 
refuges for game birds and not for federal office- 
holders. The political game wardens, who have 
been neglecting their state offices in a feverish 
anxiety to have a new federal bureau created, would 
lose interest in such a bill, but it would appeal to 
the sportsmen of the country and Congress would 
pass it. | 
The statesmen in both houses of Congress who 
felt their responsibility to the country and re- 
fused to have written into our already overcrowded 
statute a measure that fell short of accomplishing 
that which it pretends to assure did a public ser- 
vice. | 
The organized pressure that was brought to bear 
upon them did not come from the sportsmen of 
the country. It was engineered by a comparatively 
a 
